AEM welcomes two new faculty members for 2015-2016
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The AEM department will be welcoming two new faculty members in September 2015. Dr. Maziar S. Hemati and Dr. Richard Linares will be joining the faculty as Assistant Professors.
Professor Hemati received a B.S. degree in Aerospace Engineering in 2007, an M.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering in 2009, and a Ph.D in Mechanical Engineering in 2013, all from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). After receiving his Ph.D, he worked as a Post-Doctoral Research Associate in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Princeton University from 2013 to 2015. Professor Hemati has been honored as a UCLA Undergraduate Research Scholars Program Mason Scholar and has received the UCLA Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering First Year Departmental Fellowship, the UCLA Dissertation Year Fellowship, and the UCLA Outstanding Ph.D in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. He has also received the Princeton University Post-Doctoral Teaching Fellowship.
Professor Hemati's research program is aimed at gaining an improved understanding of the various mechanisms required to achieve reliable fluid flow sensing and control in the context of human-engineered systems. Broadly speaking, his research program encompasses the fields of modeling, optimization, and systems and control. Professor Hemati's ultimate goal is to innovate at the intersection of these disciplines, especially in the context of machine-fluid interaction. His near-term research is guided by applications in autonomous systems, energy, and the environment. The practical problems he plans to address in the near future are (1) real-time model-based control of agile flyers, (2) gait optimization and hydrodynamic perception for robotic swimmers, and (3) bio-inspired control and coordination in wind turbine arrays.
Professor Linares received B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in Aerospace Engineering in 2009, 2010, and 2013 respectively, all from the University at Buffalo, State University of New York. During his graduate studies Professor Linares worked extensively with U.S. Air Force research laboratory (AFRL) working on research problems that are critical to national security. After completing his Ph.D. he worked as a postdoctoral fellow at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), where he was honored with the Director Postdoctoral Fellowship. At LANL he worked on research related to space debris, the upper atmosphere, and uncertainty quantification.  Â
Professor Linares’ research interests are state and parameter estimation, and uncertainty quantification theory with a focus on the development of methods relevant to space situational awareness, vehicle attitude estimation, vehicle formation flight, small satellite systems, and autonomous navigation. He has applied these approaches to many practical aerospace problems; most notably orbital debris tracking and characterization, and precise satellite formation flight. He is interested in addressing theoretical and technical challenges in the fields of multiple object tracking, uncertainty quantification of high dimensional systems, and non-Gaussian nonlinear systems. He is also interested in the design and development of technologies for precise and robust attitude estimation and formation flight of small satellite systems.